Evangelical politics and the Gospel According to George

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”"--George W. Bush, August 5, 2004

America likes to believe it believes that all citizens are equal, but that's as delusional as Young Earth Creationists' belief that T. rex was a passenger on Noah's ark. The Bush administration owes its existence to the evangelical Christian Right. Their common ideology and tactics derive from the worst that politicized religion has to offer.

In Western history, religious dogma expressed politically has been a wellspring of lies, bigotry, hate, torture, and death. Even among the faithful, some were deemed inherently inferior. For example, in the Christian tradition women were seen as the root of all evil, as was noted by St. Paul in First Timothy when he ordered Christians “suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence" because “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression." And some people had to be eliminated ad majorem gloriam Dei. The Cathars were the first to be exterminated by Christendom's Holy Inquisition. Cathars were heretics, theologically and politically. They believed all men and women were equal, theologically and politically.

In 2004, four landlords in Allentown, Pa., refused to rent to gays, thereby violating a city anti-discrimination ordinance. They were sued. But a section of Pennsylvania's Home Rule Act, which includes Allentown, prevented the city from requiring businesses and employers not to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender, so the landlords won the case. Their crusader attorney commented after the decision: “It's a complete victory. . . . It allows them to exercise their religious conscience in the way that they see fit. "Exercising their “religious conscience" as they saw fit was exactly what the alleged 9/11 terrorists did.

Bush's main supporters are the politicized Christian Right and their leaders who wrap themselves in the flag as they preach hate and discrimination. Rev. Lou Sheldon and his Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) come immediately to mind.

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